Background: Patients at the end-of-life and their families experience a strong emotional impact. The wellbeing of the patient at the end-of-life and their family caregiver are related. Aim: to explore the elements related with the emotional wellbeing of patients with and without cognitive impairment at the end-of-life and that of their primary family caregivers. Design: Cross- sectional study. Participants: data was collected from 202 patients at the end of life with different diagnosis (COPD, cancer and frail elderly) as well as (...) from their respective 202 primary family caregivers. Results: Structural equation models indicated that the emotional state of the patients was best predicted by their functional independence and the burden of their family caregivers. At the same time, the emotional state of the primary family caregiver was predicted by their burden and not by the cognitive state or the functional independence of the patient. Nevertheless, the burden of the family caregiver, which is the only variable predicting both the emotional state of the patient and that of the caregiver, was directly related with the functional independence of the patient and indirectly with the patient’s cognitive state. Conclusions: The burden of the family caregiver stands out as a key factor in the reduction of the emotional distress of patients at the end-of-life –whether or not they present significant cognitive impairment- and that of their family caregivers. (shrink)

In this research, a sliding mode regulator with sine mapping is suggested for the stabilization of electricity generators being affected by magnet interaction nonlinearities and generator nonlinearities. To reach this goal, our suggested regulator has the following contributions: it starts from the sliding mode regulator with the modifications that the saturation mapping is used to reach a smoother performance instead of the signum mapping, and the sine mapping is applied to reach an upper bound in the proportional gain error, it (...) is used to reach some chosen constant behaviors for the angle position, angle speed, and current in the electricity generators, and its stabilization is ensured based on the Lyapunov approach. We show the simulation of the suggested regulator in two electricity generators. (shrink)

El autor toma las ideas fundamentales que los liberales han legado al mundo contemporáneo: la libertad y la propiedad fueron sus valores predilectos y su vigencia permanece hasta la actualidad. Empeñados en construir un Estado proclive a la libertad y la propiedad, los liberales idearon la soberanía, la separación de poderes y la posibilidad de que alguna vez hubiera Estados regidos por Constituciones. Hoy esas ideas constituyen los pilares de nuestra organización política.

En los primeros años del siglo XIV se planteó la polémica entre los franciscanos “espirituales” y el papa Juan XXII. El emperador alemán Luis de Baviera intervino en la confrontación a favor de los franciscanos y en contra del Papa. En la novela El nombre de la Rosa de Umberto Eco, se escenifica el conflicto entre el Franciscano Guillermo, que representa a Guillermo de Ockham y el inquisidor dominico Bernardo de Guí. En sus páginas se cita la filosofía de Aristóteles, (...) Tomás de Aquino Buenaventura de Bagnoregio, Marsilio de Padua y el propio Guillermo de Ockham. La filosofía política y el conocimiento científico de la época: Alberto Magno y Roger Bacon entre otros completan el panorama del citado siglo XIV. Todo ello demuestra una labor educativa incuestionable del libro de Umberto Eco. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic risk (...) just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

What are the testicles and who should we talk to to find out? What structures of women’s bodies are left over and what are missing? What matters in a body? Starting from Donna Haraway’s invitation to narrate «naturoculture» stories, in this article I am interested in how subaltern bodily narratives of intersex people and their companions change expert biologic knowledge, overflowing the classic dualisms of the clinic. I propose to read biology inside the «contact zone» in order to explore the (...) remaking of the body that extend or reconfigure expert imaginaries. This crafting approach to biological knowledge leads to treating expert objects as the provisional result of meaning negotiation processes. I argue that conceptualizing such objects as biological crafts allows us to expand the material cultures of biology to enable other bodies through conversations outside of expert/layman and nature/culture logics. (shrink)

Introducción -- Pedro Hispano y la lógica mexicana de la Colonia -- Nebrija como antecesor de la lingüística en la Nueva España: las Institutiones de Nebrija como libro de texto y otros influjos -- La teoría del significado semántico en Alonso de la Vera Cruz -- La teoría del significado semántico en Tomás de Mercado -- Lenguaje y lógica en Antonio Rubio -- Lenguaje y lógica en el siglo XVIII -- Los tropos en la retórica de Vallarta y Palma (...) (s. XVIII) -- El uso de la analogía por fray Diego Durán, O.P.: semiótica y antropología -- Conclusiones. (shrink)

A partir del análisis de tres crónicas de Carlos Monsiváis incluidas en la antología Los rituales del caos de 1995 respondemos a la pregunta por el tipo de discurso que constituyen dichas crónicas, es decir, ¿de qué hablan las crónicas de Monsiváis?, ¿están criticando algo?, y si es así ¿qué tipo de crítica establecen los textos del cronista mexicano?. A partir de los conceptos teóricos de Manuel Asensi, Slavoj Zizek o Julio Ramos abordamos la crónica monsivaisiana como una repolitización del (...) discurso literario. En ese sentido, retomamos el concepto de discurso y ponemos entre comillas el de “literariadedad” entendiendo, siguiendo a Asensi, que una maquinaria semiótica o discursiva opera desde distintas manifestaciones culturales, ya sea para consolidar una ideología dominante o para cuestionarla, quedando con ello de manifiesto que la interpelación hacia los sujetos por parte del texto, texto en un sentido amplio, tiene lugar no solamente desde el tratado político o filosófico. A partir de esto último, interpretamos que las crónicas monsivaisinas, como maquinarias discursivas, constituyen un cuestionamiento a la ideología dominante en el contexto en donde se encuentran operando, a decir, a la ideología nacionalista mexicana corporativista creada en los años treinta y perpetuada hasta la actualidad, al mismo tiempo que un cuestionamiento epistemológico al proyecto literario mismo. (shrink)

This study was designed to survey the extent to which private companies in Sweden take structural measures within the field of business ethics: Codes of Ethics; Ethics Committees; Ethics Officers and Ethics Training. This was done in two steps. Through a nation-wide telephone survey, a population of "active" companies were identified. These companies received a questionnaire with detailed questions regarding the design, usage and effects of these measures. The percentage of active companies were found to be a high 46%. National (...) and industry characteristics are proposed as explanatory factors. (shrink)

We argue that prediction success maximization is a basic objective of cognition and cortex, that it is compatible with but distinct from prediction error minimization, that neither objective requires subtractive coding, that there is clear neurobiological evidence for the amplification of predicted signals, and that we are unconvinced by evidence proposed in support of subtractive coding. We outline recent discoveries showing that pyramidal cells on which our cognitive capabilities depend usually transmit information about input to their basal dendrites and amplify (...) that transmission when input to their distal apical dendrites provides a context that agrees with the feedforward basal input in that both are depolarizing, i.e., both are excitatory rather than inhibitory. Though these intracellular discoveries require a level of technical expertise that is beyond the current abilities of most neuroscience labs, they are not controversial and acclaimed as groundbreaking. We note that this cellular cooperative context-sensitivity greatly enhances the cognitive capabilities of the mammalian neocortex, and that much remains to be discovered concerning its evolution, development, and pathology. (shrink)

The paper critically examines C.A.J. Coady's analysis of testimony, concentrating on his interpretation of the views of David Hume. The author tries to show that not only is Coady's interpretation of Hume inadequate, but that Hume's conception of testimony is in fact superior to that of Coady. Coady sees Hume as the originator of the individualistic, first-person, view of testimony, according to which the reports of other people must be confirmed on the basis of an individualistically interpreted perception. Coady argues (...) against the first-person view that it undermines the very possibility of communication. Drawing on the ideas of Davidson and Wittgenstein, he argues that a good many beliefs must be true for the communication to be possible. The author provides evidence that Hume was a third-person theorist himself, even if he did not think that the truth of the majority of beliefs must be presupposed. Moreover, Wittgenstein and perhaps Davidson are also Humean in their belief that it suffices for beliefs to be generally correct rather than true. (shrink)

Mimesis can refer to imitation, emulation, representation, or reenactment - and it is a concept that links together many aspects of ancient Greek Culture. The Western Greek bell-krater on the cover, for example, is painted with a scene from a phlyax play with performers imitating mythical characters drawn from poetry, which also represent collective cultural beliefs and practices. One figure is shown playing a flute, the music from which might imitate nature, or represent deeper truths of the cosmos based upon (...) Pythagorean views (which were widespread in Western Greece at the time). The idea that mimesis should be restricted to ideals was made famous by Plato (whose connections to Pythagoreanism and Siracusa are well-known), and famously challenged by his student Aristotle (not to mention by the mimetic character of Plato’s own poetry). This volume gathers essays not only on the philosophical debate about mimesis, but also on its use in architecture, drama, poetry, history, music, ritual, and visual art. The emphasis is on examples from Hellenic cities in Southern Italy and Sicily, but the insights apply far beyond – even to modern times. Contributors include: Thomas Noble Howe, Francisco J. Gonzalez, Gene Fendt, Guilherme Domingues da Motta, Jeremy DeLong, Carolina Araújo, Marie-Élise Zovko, Lidia Palumbo, Sean Driscoll, Konstantinos Gkaleas, Anna Motta, Jure Zovko, Alexander H. Zistakis, Christos C. Evangeliou, Dorota Tymura, Iris Sulimani, Elliott Domagola, Jonah Radding, Giulia Corrente, Laura Tisi, Ewa Osek, Argyri G. Karanasiou, Rocío Manuela Cuadra Rubio, Jorge Tomás García, Aura Piccioni, and José Miguel Puebla Morón. (shrink)

Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? We answer: it depends. To begin, we clear away some specious arguments surrounding this issue, to make room for the central question: What determines the reference of a name, and under what conditions do names shift reference? We’ll introduce Gareth Evans’s theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in that name’s “dossier,” and we then develop the theory’s notion of dominance. We conclude that whether Muslims’ (...) use of “Allah” co-refers with Christians’ use of “God” depends on how much weight is given to what type of information in the dossiers of these two names, and we offer a two-part test by which the reader can determine whether Muslim and Christian uses of the divine names co-refer: If Christianity were true and Islam false, might “Allah” still refer to God? And: If Islam were true and Christianity false, might “God” still refer to Allah? We explain the implications of your answers to those questions, and we close with a few reflections about what, in addition to reference, might be required for worship, and whether, from a Christian perspective, salvation turns on this issue. (shrink)

_Europe Thirty Years After 1989_ explores what happened in the former socialist countries during the last thirty years and the reasons behind these events. The authors examine how values, memory, and identity have been transforming these countries since the year 1989.

An interdisciplinary critique of business ethics as an ideology. The author discloses how contemporary business ethics is too weak to create a truly critical voice of American capitalist economy.

A review of Carole Maigné´s Formalisme esthétique: Prague et Vienne au XIXe siècle.

The author considers the most interesting arguments and objections, which various scholars have raised against his latest work, Art and Forgery: Monism and Dualism in Aesthetics.

[Darwinian Metaethics] A critical analysis of the recent theories of metaethics that take the Darwinian picture of our origin seriously. The contents: 1. Evolution of altruism; 2. Biology in ethics; 3. Moore and a critique of naturalism; 4. Darwinian non-cognitivism; 5. Darwinian cognitivist realism and constructivism; 6. Darwinian cognitivist anti-realism; 7. Darwinian fictionalism.

En este artículo se tratan los conceptos de identidad, memoria y democracia en relación con un tipo de sociedad donde prevalece el modelo identitario en un contexto de indi­vidualismo y globalización. El objetivo es señalar el contenido ético-político que podría proporcionar una identidad democrática y anamnética, así como indicar los problemas a los que debe hacer frente una teoría razonada de la democracia que se haga cargo de tal trabajo.

Primeramente, el artículo explicite las tres convergencias fundamentales entre la concepción kantiana y la levinasiana de la religión. La primera convergencia se refiere al acceso fenomenológico a la religión común a Kant y a Levinas. La segunda al hecho de que para ambos la modalidad concreta de la religión es ética. La tercera alude a un mismo modo de comprender el Reino y el acercamiento a él como "sentido último" del fenómeno religioso. En segundo lugar, el estudio señala cómo las (...) tres convergencias son posibles porque ambos pensadores suponen un tiempo otro que se cruza (diocronía) con el tiempo fenoménico. (shrink)

La valoración moral del aborto voluntario no sólo es un delicado y complejo problema bioético, sino que se ha convertido en las últimas décadas en piedra de escándalo. Por eso me he decidido a abordar su estudio justamente para intentar poner un poco de orden, sosiego y claridad de ideas en el debate, con independencia de la postura personal que presento, en todo caso avalada por razonamientos. De todos modos, es indudable que se presentan casos de difícil resolución, casos que (...) se ofrecen incluso como dilemas, abiertos como tales al pluralismo moral. Las cuestiones legales y la necesaria despenalización se tratan al final. (shrink)

The paper examines the impact of Darwin's ideas on the English literature, from the late Victorians Samuel Butler, G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells to our contemporaries A. S. Byatt and Ian McEwan.